Although not limited in this respect, wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) Peer-to-Peer networking, Wi-Fi PAN and Mesh are emerging as important extensions to the Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard for wireless networking. These types of networks have one important difference compared to an infrastructure-based (BSS) WLAN network; they are very mobile, can be created anywhere on the fly and can be very volatile (peers coming and leaving). With these kinds of ad hoc networks, one wireless peer is usually acting as the Master while the other peers are acting as Slave devices. In a Wi-Fi PAN network e.g. the Master will be a device that acts as an Access Point (software-based AP or SoftAP) and the Slaves will be regular stations (STAs).
When a wireless device supports both the access point (AP) and wireless station (STA) functionality, it could change modes on a need basis. If it is the first device in the personal area network (PAN) establishment, it will act as an AP—if it is joining an already existing PAN it will act as a STA. In effect, you will have one AP (Master) and one or more STAs (Slaves) in a Wi-Fi PAN. The problem starts when the AP (Master) wants to leave the PAN. When the AP leaves the PAN formation, the PAN will stop to exist unless one of the peers (Slaves) can switch over to AP mode and become the Master device of this PAN.
Thus, a strong need exists for an apparatus and method to dynamically handover master functionality to another peer in a wireless network.
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